User:Aregakn/sandbox

Main
Sitalchay (Sitalçay) Military Airbase is an airbase located in the East of Azerbaijan, near the Caspian Sea. It is located 70km North-West of the capital Baku in Sitalchay, a village and municipality in the Khizi Rayon.

The airbase is fenced and guarded but is not functioning since 1992. In March 2012, the magazine Foreign Policy reported that the Israeli Air Force may be preparing to use the airbase, located 500 km from the Iranian border, for air strikes against the nuclear program of Iran. Since then some analytics as well as news agencies started presenting the issue as something confirmed. Although conforming, that Israel is seeking such access, the political spheres in Azerbaijan deny such consent from Baku. Moreover, high-ranking politicians deny a possibility of use of the territory of the country for any strike against Iran; a development that Iran sees as possible.

History
The Sitalchay air base was the location of the first Soviet Air Forces Sukhoi Su-25 unit. The first eleven production aircraft were assigned to Sitalchay and the 80th or 60th Separate Assault Aviation Regiment in April 1981.

In June 1981 the 200th Separate Assault Aviation Squadron was formed at Sitalchay and then deployed to Afghanistan. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it became a base for a regiment of Sukhoi Su-25s of the 34th Air Army of the Soviet Air Forces.

In August 1992, despite the provisions of the Tashkent Treaty which directed an orderly transfer of ex-Soviet forces to the republics, Azeri troops seized the entire regiment and its aircraft.